Waitering Pet Peeves

Hi friends, hope we’re all keeping well.

I’ve worked in the service industry ever since I was around 14, and it’s safe to say I’ve discovered (too) many things that just somehow manage to slightly tick me off.

I’m not even really talking about rude customers, but rather small things that the average person usually wouldn’t give a toss about, that just irritate me for some random reason.

I think it‘s what most people call a ‘pet peeve’.

And so in this instalment of completely random ‘Wildcard Posts’, I want to talk about pet peeves I’ve discovered I have, after waitering part time in a Chinese restaurant for 6 years.

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1. 🍼Families that let their baby make a mess everywhere🍼

Let’s start with a fairly common one. So, basically I get annoyed when couples literally let their child do anything they want. While yes, I understand it’s a 6 year old child we’re talking about, come on now.

I’m talking about the ones throwing chips everywhere, dumping fried rice on the floor, hurling fried noodles at their siblings, cleaning up such a chore (sorry, realised I could throw in a cheeky rhyme in there) etc. Are you really telling me the parents can’t do anything about that? I know that if I did anything even remotely similar to these kids when I was their age, I would’ve received a public ‘disciplining’🤦🏻‍♂️

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⁉️2. Ridiculousl/Unusual Requests⁉️

A great way to illustrate this pet peeve, I think, is with an example.

The other day, I remember serving these 2 wonderful old ladies sitting together at one table. It was relatively busy at the time (like it usually is when I come into work), so all the floor staff were stretched quite thin.

At one point, one of my co-workers asked me to bring 2 bottles of beer to the ladies’ table, since she herself had her hands full with other things.

Now, at our establishment, when we serve bottles of beer like Coors Light, Tiger, and Heineken, we usually serve them in a beer glass like the following:

At the time, however, since it was so busy we actually had no more of these glasses left, thus I decided to just use a regular soft drink glass for the two beers, which looked like this:

This glass, however, was met with an extremely displeasured expression on both ladies’ faces. As I put the glass down on the table, one’s face quite literally scrunched up in disgust, and asked if there was a better looking glass.

Even after I said no, and that we had run out of regular beer glasses because it was so busy, she told me she simply refused to drink from such an ‘ugly’ glass, and asked me to go fetch her a regular water glass instead. 🙃

Now, usually if there were only one or two customers in the restaurant, this type of event would be downgraded to ‘minor humorous inconvenience’.

But because of how exceptionally busy it was, the magnitude of the inconvenience caused by this request was magnified…a lot.

So, I suppose strange and unusual requests aren’t really the true pet peeve, but it’s when they’re made during an extremely busy, or inconvenient time, that they begin to slightly tick me off.

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🙄3. People who Lie about Reservations🙄

When literal families walk in and have the audacity to lie about making a reservation, and then get mad when we tell them they didn’t and that we’re full and can’t serve them…😤😤😤

I seriously don’t understand how people can do this. You’re literally taking away a reservation that someone else made possibly weeks in advance, and then have the gall to get mad when exposed for it.

This pet peeve is amplified much more when they stick to their guns and simply refuse to back down about their lying, even when we have all the contact details about the person who ACTUALLY made the reservation 🤦🏻‍♂️

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🐶4. Using Pet Sounds/Gestures to Call you Over🐶

One of the absolute most annoying pet peeves, 100%, is when people snap their fingers in the air, whistle at you, and say “Hey! Hey!” to try get your attention. Or do the little air kissing sounds.

Brother.

Save that for your pet, not your server.

Another kind PSA for people going to restaurants: If you’re ever looking for a waiter’s attention, simply put your hand up and say a ‘Sorry!’ or ‘Excuse me!’ to get their attention, rather than make strange noises or pet signals.

Rest assured, most of us are already trying to keep an eye on everyone, so any extra little thing to make you more noticeable is going to help a lot. These extra little things do not have to be pet noises or pet signals, even just raising your hand and politely calling them over should be more than enough. 👍🏼

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Dang, I probably should write a 5th pet peeve to have a nice number for the list, but I can’t think of anything at the moment🙃

Maybe in the future I’ll make a second instalment…A

Anyway, thanks for reading if you made it this far, stay safe👍🏼